If you haven’t heard of qik, it’s a cool way to record videos with your cell phone and upload them. I’ll say more about video on Monday.

WFPL News went live on twitter about a month ago, after some brief conversations here in the building about experimenting with the channel. The foundation of our service is a rolling feed of news we’re publishing to our site, delivered automatically via rss. But we’ve also tried a few different things: very low key promotion, giving listeners a heads up about local pieces we’re going to broadcast on Morning Edition or All Things Considered; asking questions of our users (on Primary day, “tell us about your voting experience”); and responding to listeners who direct questions to us.

All of these approaches have worked well, from our perspective. We’ve tried hard not to treat the channel as simply another megaphone to reach the masses. We’ve also tried to avoid the trivial.

Our goal has been to speak to our “audience” on twitter with the same voice we use on-air – a voice that’s personal, approachable, authoritative, thoughtful, sometimes humorous. As I’ve noted before, the vast majority of our followers on twitter are from Louisville; they’re already our listeners and many are big fans. Our interaction with them on-air and on twitter changes slightly with the platform, even though the core values remain the same.

So, we’re ready to expand our experiment a little. Up to now, I’ve been the sole “tweeter” for WFPL News, besides the mouse on the wheel in the RSS engine. In the next few days, we’ll expand to three individuals, each of whom will spend a small amount of time each day with twitter.

Our strategy? Glad you asked.

• The auto-feed of news stories continues via rss
• Promotion of local content continues – local features during newsmagazines, promotion of topics on local shows. (by promotion, I mean one mention within an hour before broadcast, not multiple hits)
• Promotion of new web features like Budget Hero.
• We’ll look for 1-2 opportunities each week, initially, to “survey” our audience. We’ll take what I call a “public insight” approach, asking people questions where they can be the expert: what was your experience when you went to vote today? or what’s the price you paid when you last filled the gas tank? as opposed to why have Kentucky graduation rates risen this year? The questions we ask will have a purpose, providing either direct or anecdotal information to our reporters or producers.
• We’ll add a brief update on stories we’re covering for the day each morning.
• We’ll continue to respond to every person who asks a question or makes a comment; we’ll monitor the entire twitter stream regularly, too, so we can see any other conversations about us. (Summize is killer for this; you should go there right after you read this and enter your organization’s name in the box to see what people are saying about you.)
• Develop 1-2 new experiments to test on the channel.

And that, for now, is our strategy. It takes the elements that worked in our first experiment, and makes them standard, more intentional.

Why not more? Because in our “budget” of time and staff, that’s what we can afford at present. Right now, we have about 65 “listeners” on twitter; we can scale up our presence as our audience grows and as staffing allows.

How does this twitter plan fit our Media Strategy? It advances a couple of our goals: increasing interaction with our audience, and increasing the transparency of our organization.

How will we know if it’s working? We’ll look for the following easily measured results: more local followers on twitter; more followers talking directly to us, answering our questions, but also asking us about other stuff (for instance, when will we get the first customer service question on twitter? the first “I gave you money, where’s my coffee mug?”); and growth in visits to our main web sites.

How often will we evaluate and potentially adjust our plan? Weekly. We aren’t going to try this for a year and then produce a Powerpoint.

In summary, our approach to a social media opportunity is not that much different from anything else we do. It involves a plan, an accounting of costs and benefits, goals and regular review.

I offer no judgments here about Comcast, the quality of its service, etc. This post is about Frank Eliason, Comcast’s Rep who tracks twitter every day and responds to customer questions, and the role of social media tools like twitter in fostering a closer engagement with their “audience.” (Yes, these companies are also thinking about brand management, but aren’t all of us in public media?)

1) How did Comcast’s use of Twitter come about? Was it your idea? Was it difficult to get company buy-in?

We started reaching out on the internet about 6 months ago. We did this through blogs and other websites that were discussing Comcast. It started off slowly, but we continued to build steam. As you can imagine it was very successful. Based on the success we worked to expand our efforts. About 3 months ago, Scott Westerman (@wscottw3) pointed us in the direction of Twitter. We started watching Twitter at the time, but we only reached out through blog posts. Then one Sunday, Michael Arrington came across an RSS feed, so we reached out. He wrote a blog post.

Two interesting points to the blog post. First people started to say that it was only because it was Michael Arrington, but then others started to chime in that we helped them too. The other interesting point was because it was now known that we were on Twitter we decided to get more involved. This led to the rewarding experience we are now seeing.

2) How do you do it – how do you discover conversations about Comcast that are taking place, and then “insert yourself” for lack of a better term, into the conversation?

We use Tweetscan and Summize, as well as RSS feeds of Tweets mentioning Comcast. We respond to many of those tweets.

3) What is the benefit to Comcast that comes from engaging customers through twitter, since twitter is still a tiny segment of the online community?

The biggest benefit is the speed in which you know something is going on. People share everything there, so if they are having trouble in one area, they mention in Twitter. This is sometimes before they even call.

4) Does Comcast use any metric to gauge the effectiveness of twitter or other social media tools?

At this time we mainly use online tools, but we are looking into tools that will assist [us.]

5) Do you have any thoughts about ways public radio stations could use twitter to engage with their listeners?

Stations have a lot of unique programming. Sometimes small stations have great programming that can be lost with everything on the net. This is a great audience to share it. I also think that Twitter is a great place for engaging conversations, so after certain shows, participate in a Twitter conversation on the same topic. Not only can listeners participate, but it will bring in a whole new audience.

Social Media Insider profiles Frank Eliason here.

UPDATE: Troy Rutter posts two more examples of companies who understand how to use twitter.

Andy Carvin has composed an excellent essay that’s well worth your time, arguing for engagement and authenticity on twitter: more live (or semi-live) conversation, less automated publishing.

WFPL News went live this morning with its twitter feed. The core of our service will include some automation: newsroom stories are getting pumped to twitter as they get published on the site. But when I vetted our plan with Andy this morning, he pointed out the #5 priority on my list (“directly engage the audience on twitter”) and encouraged me to move it up closer to #1 (that automated feed).

Twitter is about conversation. I’ve been in the twitter community since January 2007; it began as a presence app, designed so you could update your status for your friends. But that broadcast model was very quickly challenged, especially once twitter took off. People started talking to each other – not private chats (although those are possible with twitter) but public conversations.

I’ve always compared it to shouting across a crowded bar to a friend: what you’re saying is for your friend, but you don’t mind others hearing it. And perhaps a couple other friends, or total strangers, will chime in. That’s twitter. It’s conversations… or as Marshall Kirkpatrick said (on twitter) last night, “… rapid, short, synchronous and public conversations.”

Alright, so using twitter is all about conversation and engagement. If you need more convincing, read Carvin’s post again.

It’s also about authenticity, transparency – the most basic concepts that should govern how we engage with our audience on any platform, web, on-air, whatever. And on this subject of authenticity, one of the keys to success here is getting the “voice” right.

Program directors think about this all the time in the context of their on-air sound; it’s part of the core values of our services. Well, if you’re a program director, your job is getting bigger; you are now (or should be) program director of the web, of the podcasts, of the extra streams, of the HD multicast, etc. What are the qualities of heart, mind and craft of your station? How do they translate to every facet of your outreach? And how does each service bearing your brand reflect and build upon those core values?

At Louisville Public Media (as is the case at most public stations), we try to answer every email, letter and phone call we get. We’re gracious when praised; concerned and ready to learn when we get criticism. We tell our audience that every listener is important and we try to live that.

How do we live it on twitter? Map the principles to the new platform. Every user who “follows” us gets followed back. Everyone who sends a direct message to us via twitter will get a response. Everyone who “shouts across the bar to us” will get a response. Since we respect the intelligence of our audience and value their input, we’ll develop ways to encourage input from our twitter audience. And we’ll speak to them in much the same tone we use on the air – an intelligent, thoughtful, sometimes humorous voice.

We have to, not because we’ve swallowed a pill that makes us all sweaty whenever someone brings up branding. It’s much simpler than that: so far, nearly every non-public media person who has followed us is from Louisville. These people aren’t like our listeners. They are our listeners.

We’ll go slow. I expect I’ll engage this little online community in much the same way that I try to engage them when I’m on air or at a public event, and I expect we’ll expand the experiment to include other on-air personalities who want to get in on the fun.

If anything interesting happens, I’ll let you know.

We saw the power of KPBS News during the California wildfires, in the effective ways they used a variety of new tools, including Twitter… but what do you do when your city of license isn’t on fire?

Ken George at WBUR has turned the lights back on at WBUR’s twitter account and wrote yesterday (thanks, acarvin, for pointing me to it) about what the station twitter account should be.

I remain uncertain — to the point of apprehension — about what I should “Tweet” about. Do you want WBUR news updates? Irreverent musings? Programming information? Personal trivia? Shout-outs to my peeps? A running chronology of my day?

Early comments indicate people want a combination of all of the above.

I flipped the switch on WFPL’s twitter account today, and when I suggested to Andy Carvin that I’d emphasize the newsfeed over (but not to the exclusion of) the interactive element, he suggested I re-think that. And he’s right – twitter is more about conversation and engagement and less marketing, promotion and station bullhorn.

Anyway, I’ll write more about our plan for twitter later.

Shouts to Nathan Wright, who is fighting the good fight in Des Moines.